Chapter 1706

Zhukov asked malining to draft an order, requiring that in the early morning of the 25th, the artillery density of 250-270 guns per kilometer in the breakthrough area should be carried out for 30-40 minutes. He also stressed in particular that the artillery preparation was carried out by each group army alone.

Regarding the order given by Zhukov, malining asked somewhat puzzledly: "Comrade marshal, if we concentrate on the use of artillery fire, won't we get more results?"

Zhukov took a look at him, and then said, "Comrade chief of staff, there is a certain way you said. The artillery power of tens of thousands of guns is definitely much stronger than that of thousands of guns. But have you ever thought that it will take more time for us to assemble all the artillery troops assigned to the front army than for a group army to assemble artillery troops and set up positions? "

"So it is. I see, comrade marshal." After listening to Zhukov, malining nodded his head and said, "I'm going to prepare the order now!"

The next morning, after the artillery was ready, as soon as trakov's troops attacked the enemy's defensive positions, the German army put the elite kurman and minhberg divisions, as well as a SS infantry division, into action. They concentrated their forces and launched an attack at the junction of the left wing of the 8th group and the 69th group army.

The defensive position of the 79th division became the focus of German attack. After the heavy shelling, the German counterattack troops, under the cover of armored vehicles, charged the 227th regiment of the division.

After the position of the second battalion of the regiment was broken through by the German army, the head of the regiment, shamikov, personally took the guard company to support and prepared to use the way of anti assault to block the gap opened by the German army. Before leaving the command post, shamilov called a communications staff officer and said, "report to the division immediately, saying that the German army has launched a charge against our regiment's defensive position. We are making a tenacious attack. Please send troops from the division to support us."

When he got to the position with his men, he saw that his troops and the German army had started a white-edged battle. The number of German troops was larger than that of their own, and they were supported by armored vehicles, so their own troops could not support them. He immediately ordered the messenger with walkie talkie behind him: "order the first battalion to come to support immediately!" While the signalman called for battalion one, he raised his pistol over his head and cried out, "come with me, brothers After shouting, they took the lead in rushing towards the area where they were fighting. Dozens of soldiers of the guard company saw that the commander was so brave and rushed up with a shout.

The officers and men of the second battalion were already in a weak position, but when they saw their commander coming with a new force, they were immediately elated and even harder to fight with the German army by waving their weapons.

Before long, the officers and men of the first battalion also arrived at the battlefield. Our army had an advantage in the number of people, and the situation was gradually developing in the direction beneficial to our army. Who knows, just at this time, the four German dive bombers came to the sky of the battlefield, and saw that the ground was in chaos. The German pilots did not know what to think. They actually dropped bombs at the densest place of the two sides' armies. They used machine guns and machine guns to strafe regardless of the enemy and ourselves, plowing wide bloody alleys in the crowd.

Trakov, who stayed in the headquarters, soon learned about the brutal fighting of the 227th regiment of the guards through the battle reports fed back from the front. He stared at the map for a moment, then raised his head and asked Vladimirov, "chief of staff, which unit is closest to the 227th regiment of the guards?"

Vladimirov looked through his notebook, frowned and replied: "the main force of the 79th division of the guards is at least five kilometers away from the 227th regiment of the guards. It will take at least an hour for them to get to the battlefield. I'm afraid that the support of the troops of shmikov won't last that long."

While they were studying how to rescue the 227th regiment, I was staring at the big map on the wall. I saw a unit of the 69th group army beside the red attack arrow formed by the 79th division of the guards, so I coughed hard. After drawing their attention, I pointed to the map and asked, "two general comrades, I want to ask, which unit is the left wing of the 227th regiment of the guards?"

Trikov looked in the direction of my finger. When he saw the two red arrows next to them, he could not help but brighten his eyes. He quickly told Vladimirov: "chief of staff, go and find out which army is on the left wing of the 227th regiment of the guards."

A moment later, Vladimirov, who had finished the phone call, came back and reported: "Comrade commander, on the left side of the 227th regiment of the guards, is the 19th brigade of the 8th mechanized army of the guards of general dlyomov. They are only two kilometers away from the shamikov regiment."

"The 19th brigade of Jinwei mechanization?" After hearing this number, trakov asked tentatively, "is it the unit that won the honorary title of" Rhodes brigade "

"Yes, comrade commander, it's them." Vladimirov nodded and said, "do you need to get in touch with general deliomov immediately and mobilize this mechanized brigade to support the 227th regiment of the guards?"

"It's no use saying that, my chief of staff." Seeing that Vladimirov was still standing in the same place, trikov urged him to say, "hurry up and call general deliomov. Let him send out the Roz brigade. Now every minute is precious to us."

With the support of the Roz brigade, after two hours of fierce fighting, the 227th regiment of the guards finally successfully repulsed the German attack. Two German planes were shot down, eight armored vehicles were destroyed, and hundreds of German officers and soldiers were killed.

Although the results seem to be very good, our army has also paid huge casualties. The second battalion of the 227th regiment of the guards was almost completely destroyed, and the first battalion suffered more than half of the casualties, even the head of the regiment was seriously injured. He was fighting with the German bayonet when he was wounded by a bomb dropped by a German plane.

Several surviving soldiers of the guard company carried him down from the battlefield and sent him to the camp clinic for simple dressing. When the Rhodes brigade arrived, the guards took him to the division's field hospital with a stretcher.

From Vladimirov's mouth, trikov got the news of his serious injury. He was surprised and asked, "how is his injury? Is his life in danger?"

"The military doctors are rescuing, but the situation is not very optimistic." Vladimirov said solemnly: "the right hip bone of his forehead was broken by shrapnel, an arm was blown off, and his body is full of wounds. It's up to fate whether he can survive."

By noon, the group army had occupied the areas of trebnitz and youngsfield. Right wing forces have also moved forward to the front lines of Maxwell and Volkov. However, it is a pity that the performance of the 69th group army on the left is not good, and the forward distance of the army is limited, which leads to the lengthening of the left wing of the trokov army. Aware of this situation, the German army frequently carried out counter attacks in this direction, trying to drive our troops to the South and away from Berlin as far as possible. In order to avoid being driven away from the occupied area by the enemy and to cover the left wing of the group army, trakov transferred two divisions of the 28th army of the guards.

In the middle of the battle, Zhukov called me and told me a piece of bad news: "Rita, I called Comrade Stalin and asked him to allow our tank troops to bypass the zelauf heights, cross the konev defense zone and rush straight to Berlin, but he refused."

Although I had known for a long time that Stalin would refuse Zhukov's request, I casually asked, "Comrade marshal, I don't know what the Supreme Commander himself said?"

"He said that if the first front army of Belarus is unable to complete the breakthrough task, then he will order the 3rd and 4th tank army of the close guard under konev to attack Berlin from the south." After giving me a brief introduction, Zhukov said sternly, "konev's troops have crossed the spree and are ready to attack the southern suburbs of Berlin. The capture of Berlin, a huge trophy, is now in danger of being lost. In order to avoid the worst situation, you must speed up your attack and try to capture the whole of zelauf heights as soon as possible. Do you understand? "

"I see, marshal. I'll pass on your message to general trakov."

I put down the phone, repeated Zhukov's words to trakov, and finally said: "general trakov, our superior thinks our attack speed is too slow. It seems that we need to find a way to speed up."

"How else can we speed up?" Vladimirov said helplessly: "there are so many villages and settlements on the highlands. It takes us a long time to capture each one, but at the same time we have to pay huge casualties."

"In this case, the blasting method should be adopted." Although Zhukov did not threaten to remove his commanders and send them to the military court, I knew in my heart that it was urgent to seize the whole zelauf heights, so I said decisively: "as long as we find German settlements and villages, we will use tanks or self-propelled artillery to destroy them, Open up a path for our infantry and armored forces. "

"Rita, if you do, it will make many civilians homeless." Trekov was so frightened by my command that he reminded me, "it's still winter. How do you let these people get through the cold night?"

"Not so much, general trakov." At the moment, I understand the true meaning of "Tzu Buzhang". In order to win the final victory, some radical means should be used without hesitation. Therefore, I said decisively: "what we need now is time. It is our honor and duty to rush into Berlin first. No one is allowed to enter Berlin earlier than us, Not even friendly. Do you understand? "

"If we do this, the places where our troops pass will become ruins." Pronin, the military commissar who had not spoken for a long time, suddenly said, "Rita, do you really not think about it any more?"

"General Pronin, compared with these buildings, the most precious thing is the lives of our commanders and fighters. If we destroy German settlements and villages, thousands of our commanders and fighters will be saved from bloodshed. I am willing to bear this curse." I stared at Pronin and said with a strong attitude: "moreover, the German people's stormtroopers are composed of old people and children. We can't identify who are ordinary civilians and who are members of the people's stormtroopers who work for Hitler. Therefore, we can only find a way to drive them out of this area."

"Comrades of the military commissar, don't say any more." After my words, trikov raised his hand to stop plonin, who tried to refute me. He stood on my side and said good things for me: "Rita can do it. Now it's war. In order to win the final victory, we must take some special measures. As for these destroyed houses, we can only rebuild them after the end of the war. Anyway, we still have tens of thousands of prisoners of war in our hands, so it is most appropriate for them to complete the work. "

With the new order issued, the attack speed of trakov's troops was greatly accelerated. In the evening, the commander of the 82nd division of the guards, hetagurov, reported that the 242nd regiment of the guards under the command of Colonel sukhorukov had eliminated the enemy in the city of minkhberg and successfully occupied the city“ Oh, minhberg is occupied? " The report of hetagurov surprised trakov a little. He asked curiously, "are the casualties of the troops large?"“ Report to commander, "said hetagurov in a joyful tone," we succeeded in occupying the city with less than one company injured. " Without waiting for trekov to ask again, he went straight on, "when the troops under the command of Colonel sukhorukov saw that the German troops had built many fortifications in the east of the city and were heavily guarded, they left a front to contain the enemy. They led the main force of the regiment to detour back to the north of the city and then launched an attack from there. The enemy did not expect that our troops would come out from behind them, and immediately fell into chaos. After more than two hours of fighting, our army conquered minhberg at a very low cost. " As the battle for the Highlands entered its fourth day, the situation became more favorable to our army. The second group army of close guard tanks under the command of general Bogdanov broke into the Bernau area in the attack area of the third assault group army under the command of general Kuznetsov; The units of the 3rd and 5th shock group army and the 8th guard group army successfully broke through the enemy's last defensive zone on the high ground; The troops of the 1st group army of the close guard tank advanced to the regions of kageer, felstenwald and enikendorf, where they joined the troops of the 28th army of the close guard infantry. Although there are still a few remnants of the German army on the Highlands, there is no threat to our army any more. It only needs a few small troops at the company level to wipe them out. Berlin, right in front of us!